Roy Ullyett

(16 March 1914 - 20 October 2001, UK)

The Daily Express (15 September 1959)

Roy Ullyett was a British sports cartoonist, with a career spanning 70 years and an oeuvre of over 25,000 cartoons. Ullyett was a master of observation and exaggeration, who befriended many of the prominent sportsmen he portrayed in his caricatures.

He was born in Leytonstone into a family with a history in sports and art. His father was a manager with sports brand Slazenger and a watercolour painter in his spare time, and his maternal great-grandfather was the landscape painter Glover. He grew up in Southend, where he lived for most of his life. He sold his first cartoon to the local paper, the Southend Times, and became a sports cartoonist with the London Evening Star at age 19.

He continued to work for the Star until 1953, while also working for the Sunday Pictorial under the name Berryman. He then became a cartoonist with the Daily Express, where he formed a professional companionship with sports reporter Desmond Hackett. Ullyett officially retired in 1979, but he eventually continued to work for the Express until 1997.

Roy Ullyett was also notable for his charity work. He raised over 1 million pounds through sales of his original artwork. He co-wrote his autobiography with Norman Giller in 1998, called 'While There's Still Lead In My Pencil'.